“Climate change is fast becoming a cost-of-living, public health, economic and national security crisis. The governments that recognise this will be the ones that succeed.”
Christine Blower wrote a piece for the Socialist Campaign Group’s 2026 pamphlet ‘The Socialist Policies We Need’. You can read the pamphlet in full below.
This summer should mark a turning point.
Across Britain and Europe, record-breaking heat has fuelled devastating wildfires, damaged crops, disrupted transport, strained water supplies and placed huge pressure on public services. Tens of thousands of people across Europe have died from extreme heat, and there was even discussion of fully evacuating a major European city.
Scientists warned for decades that this is what a changing climate would look like. It is now our reality.
Our politics must catch up. Climate change is fast becoming a cost-of-living, public health, economic and national security crisis. The governments that recognise this will be the ones that succeed. There is broad public support for climate action. Politicians who fail to protect communities won’t be forgiven. We cannot be as badly prepared for this as we were for the Covid pandemic.
Action to limit climate change and strengthen climate resilience must be woven into how Labour rebuilds Britain: protecting people, strengthening the economy and creating communities where everyone can live with security, dignity and hope. It cannot be treated as an optional add-on.
There can be no thriving economy or society if our homes, workplaces, public services and transport networks are increasingly disrupted by extreme heat and flooding. Nor can living standards improve if families are repeatedly exposed to soaring food prices and fossil fuel price shocks.
All this demands that Labour places climate action at the heart of its mission, with an active role for government: one prepared to invest for the long term, shape markets in the public interest and support public ownership and democratic control to deliver better outcomes.
Decades of neoliberalism weakened the state’s capacity. Privatised water companies polluted rivers while failing to build reservoirs. Our energy system has left households exposed to repeated gas price shocks. Britain was left less resilient, less secure and more unequal.
The active state the climate crisis demands
A short article like this cannot set out an exhaustive programme, but the examples below illustrate why meeting the climate crisis requires an active government willing to lead, invest and plan for the long term.
Britain’s infrastructure is far from prepared for the climate we now face. More than 1,000 schools closed during June’s heatwave, with children missing over seven million school days, while the NHS experienced its busiest month on record for A&E. More broadly, the impacts of climate disruption on our critical national infrastructure are becoming a growing security threat.
Building resilience will require substantial investment in public infrastructure. Every £1 invested today will save far more in avoided damage tomorrow and can also be at the heart of the Government’s vision for reindustrialisation.
The transition to wind and solar power, marine energy, modern electricity grids and clean manufacturing can drive industrial renewal while delivering a just transition for workers. Britain clearly has the potential. What has been missing is political ambition.
Every family deserves a home that is warm in winter, cool in summer and affordable to run. That requires a National Retrofit Mission focused on high-quality insulation, rooftop solar, heat pumps, improved ventilation, shading and, where necessary, air conditioning, while creating skilled local jobs in every town and city.
Our neighbourhoods must also be redesigned. More trees, parks, wetlands, green roofs and better drainage can cool towns, reduce flood risk, protect nature, improve air quality and create better places to live. Every child should be able to walk to school beneath the shade of trees, not through streets that are unbearable in extreme heat.
Public transport also has a key role to play in that. Restoring it as a genuinely public service would cut emissions while improving lives.
As extreme weather disrupts harvests and drives up prices, Britain needs a food system that supports farmers to adapt while guaranteeing access to healthy, affordable food. Delivering a Right to Food in law would recognise that food security is as fundamental to national resilience as energy security or flood protection.
None of this, nor the wider transformation we need, can be left to the market.
Funding a just transition
Alongside this, we must complete the shift from fossil fuels. Otherwise, Britain will continue to import inflation whenever gas prices rise. Two fossil fuel price shocks in five years, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Trump’s war on Iran, delivered windfalls for oil and gas giants, with working people paying the price.
It would be a profound mistake for a Labour government to give the green light to new oil and gas fields such as Rosebank.
Ed Miliband was right to previously describe new licences as climate vandalism. They would do nothing to reduce household energy bills because the oil and gas extracted would be sold on international markets at global prices. They would lock Britain into the very model that has repeatedly undermined our energy security.
Another key question is how to fund the significant public investment needed to address the climate crisis. We should not shy away from answering that those most responsible must bear the greatest share.
Fossil fuel companies that have enjoyed extraordinary profits while taking us to the cliff edge of climate catastrophe must help finance the transition. The same should be true of the wealthiest, whose lifestyles have contributed disproportionately to emissions.
That principle of climate justice should also guide Britain’s international responsibilities. Cutting climate finance for low-income countries is not only morally wrong but economically and strategically short-sighted.
Neither greenhouse gas emissions nor the consequences of climate breakdown stop at borders. Crop failures, extreme weather, rising food prices and displacement all have global consequences. Helping poorer countries adapt to climate impacts and build clean energy systems is an investment in a safer, more stable world and, ultimately, in Britain’s own future.
A fairer, more secure Britain
This summer has underlined that climate disruption is now the backdrop against which every government must govern.
A modern socialist politics should respond by offering greater security alongside greater equality: the security of homes protected from flooding and overheating; of energy bills no longer hostage to volatile fossil fuel markets; of access to healthy, affordable food; and of living in a healthier, fairer and more resilient country.
To build that fairer, more secure Britain, climate action and climate resilience must sit at the heart of Labour’s mission, not as a separate environmental agenda but as central to improving people’s lives, strengthening our economy and renewing the country for the future.
- Christine Blower is a Labour Representative in the House of Lords and the former President the National Union of Teachers (now the National Education Union).
- You can read the SCG pamphlet ‘The Socialist Policies We Need’ in full here. The foreword says that “We hope this contributes to a debate across the Labour Party, trade unions and the wider movement about the political programme needed to deliver the change people voted for, to build a better future for our communities and to prevent the rise of a Trump-style government here in Britain.“
- If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please donate here or become a regular supporter on Patreon here.
